After receiving your message, I tried this in Adobe Reader 8.1.2 and you’re right – it doesn’t seem to work any more. You can right click on the selection and the shortcut menu says you can copy using Ctrl+C, but it’s definitely not working me either. I’ll update the post.

I am able to copy but when I paste the text into word it comes in as little boxes and not as letters. I try to change the font but it doesn’t work. I am using Adobe Reader 9.2 and trying to paste into Word. I am on a Mac.

It sounds as thought the font is not recognized on your Mac. As you’ve found, changing it later probably doesn’t work. I know there’s an option to embed fonts when a PDF is created, but I’m not sure whether that would have helped or not. Can you get access to the original (before it was a PDF)?

Hi Rhonda: I think that you are correct about the non recognition of the font and unfortunately I cannot get access to the originals in time for my deadline. I solved the problem (sort of) by having my boss copy and paste into a word doc and send them to me. For some reason his mac (which is older than mine) does recognize the font.

Thank you for your speedy response to my query. At least I now know that I am not crazy! :-)

To be able to get the text of the pdf, I use that snapshot tool and copy the image in the program GT Text.http://gt-text.en.softonic.com/
Is super fast and easy! GT Text then tranlates the image text to normal text and copies it in the clipboard.
So snapshot, control paste in gt text, copy text to clipboard. Boala!